NANTERRE, France — A French court ordered a magazine publisher to hand over all digital copies of topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge within 24 hours and blocked further publication of what it called a “brutal display” of William and Kate’s private moments.

Under the ruling Tuesday, the French gossip magazine Closer faces a daily fine of C10,000 ($13,100) if it fails to hand over the photos taken during the royals’ vacation in southern France and cannot disseminate them any further, including on its website and tablet app.

The magazine published 14 photos of a partially clad Kate in its pages on Friday.

But if the royal family had hoped to block international publication, it was too late. Publications in Ireland and Italy already went ahead with the topless photos. Tuesday’s ruling only affects Mondadori Magazines France, Closer’s publisher. The publisher also faces a C2,000 ($2,600) fine.

“These snapshots which showed the intimacy of a couple, partially naked on the terrace of a private home, surrounded by a park several hundred meters from a public road, and being able to legitimately assume that they are protected from passers-by, are by nature particularly intrusive,” the French ruling decreed. “[They] were thus subjected to this brutal display the moment the cover appeared.”

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The photos show Prince William’s wife Kate relaxing at a private villa in Provence, in southern France, sometimes without her bikini top and, in one case, her suit bottom partially pulled down to apply sunscreen.

The lawyer for Mondadori failed to show up at the courthouse on Tuesday.

Maud Sobel, a lawyer for the royal couple, described it as “a wonderful decision.”

“We’ve been vindicated,” Sobel said.

The case is the first of two legal actions by the British royals. In a reflection of just how intent they are on protecting their privacy — and likely dissuading paparazzi from future ventures — St. James’s Palace said family lawyers would be filing a criminal complaint.

Christopher Mesnooh, an American lawyer who works in Paris, said French law strongly protects privacy rights but tabloids have their own reasons for publication, even when they might violate the law.

“It appears to give satisfaction entirely to the royal couple,” Mesnooh said of Tuesday’s ruling.

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But he added that the amount of money is nowhere near enough to dissuade the publication of similar photos.

“If you sell 100,000 copies, you’re ahead of the game,” he noted.

The ruling listed the royal couple by their full names: William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten-Windsor and Catherine Elizabeth Middleton.

Copies of Closer’s Friday edition flew off the shelves in France, snapped up by collectors, British tourists and curious French readers, as controversy over the photos raged.

“The stock has run out,” said newspaper vendor Jeremy Alluard, adding that his 30 copies of the magazine had sold out in an hour and a half. “There’s no way of getting any more at the depot, there are no more to be had,” he said.

A second vendor, Omar Abdel, said he had sold many copies to British tourists who explained they were unable to get hold of the weekly in Britain.

Closer defended its publication of a dozen long-lens shots of the duchess on the balcony of a secluded villa which show her slipping off her bikini top, relaxing topless on a sun lounger and pulling down her bikini bottoms as her husband applies lotion.

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An Italian gossip magazine also owned by Berlusconi published a 26-page spread of topless photos despite the legal action in France.

Chi hit newsstands on Monday, featuring a montage of photos taken while the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were on vacation at a relative’s home in the south of France last month. They included the 14 pictures published by the popular French magazine Closer, which like Chi is owned by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Mondadori publishing house.

But the Chi spread ran the whole sequence of photos as the couple sunbathed on a terrace, including one shot of the princess putting sun cream on her backside that didn’t appear in Closer.

The couple is hitting back hard against the publication of the images, which William’s St. James’s Palace called a “grotesque” invasion of their privacy.

Chi editor Alfonso Signorini told The Associated Press over the weekend that he didn’t fear legal action since the photos were already in the public domain following Closer’s publication.

The pictures have rekindled memories in Britain of the media pursuit of William’s mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 while being chased by paparazzi.

Britain’s tabloid papers, fighting for their reputations after a series of scandals, have refrained from publishing the pictures, even though they are available on the Internet and in the pages of a tabloid in neighbouring Ireland.

Even the best-selling Sun tabloid, the only British title to run pictures of William’s brother Harry cavorting naked in a Las Vegas hotel last month, has declared the photos off-limits.

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POPULAR ROYALS

As well as fearing new regulation, the British press are wary of upsetting readers just as the royal family’s popularity is rising, boosted by William and Kate’s glittering wedding last year, this year’s Golden Jubilee celebration for Queen Elizabeth, and royal appearances at the London Olympics.

The Irish Daily Star did publish shots of the duchess on Saturday that were originally printed in Closer.

But on Sunday its co-owner, Independent News and Media (INM) , Ireland’s biggest media company, joined its British partner Northern and Shell in condemning what it called a “breach of decency”.

“On behalf of INM, I wish to offer my deepest apologies,” INM chief executive Joe Webb said in the Sunday Independent, another of the group’s titles.

Northern and Shell Chairman Richard Desmond said he was taking immediate steps to close down their joint venture, but Webb said he hoped to prevent the closure of the paper.